Living the Experience: Migration, Exclusion, and Anti-Racist Practice (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Living the Experience: Migration, Exclusion, and Anti-Racist Practice Lucía Madariaga-Vignudo MacDonald E. Ighodaro. Living the Experience: Migration, Exclusion, and Anti-Racist Practice. Halifax, NS: Fernwood Publishing Press, 2006. 192 pp. $ 24.95 sc. Research relating to the African refugee population in Canada is scant. MacDonald Ighodaro, professor of Sociology and Criminology at Saint Mary’s University helps to fill this intellectual gap. Through a critical anti-racist lens, Ighodaro’s book, Living the Experience: Migration, Exclusion and Anti-Racist Practice, sheds light on the harsh situations of many African refugees and longer-established African Canadians. Ighodaro posits that Canada’s refugee policy is unjust in that it favours white-skinned Europeans over dark-skinned Africans. To buttress his claim, he points to [End Page 234] Canada’s preferential treatment toward Yugoslav refugees over Somalis in the 1990s. The former, unlike the latter, were granted permanent status in Canada and offered employment opportunities immediately upon their arrival (129). The entrance of the Yugoslavs was expedited under the family reunification program, and those who were registered as refugee claimants were speedily granted Convention Refugee status (129, 130). Yet this type of Canadian hospitality was not — and is not, argues Ighodaro — bestowed on equally needy Africans who are “…deemed inferior compared to other migrants in the minds of immigration officials” (49). Readers of this book come to understand that Africans in need of protection are systematically disadvantaged since they have limited access to Canadian immigration offices where they are required to make refugee claims. Few offices operate in Africa, and the ones that exist are situated in select countries. This means, to take an example, that a single woman in peril in Khartoum, Sudan must make the treacherous 1,612 km trek and apply for Canadian resettlement in Cairo, Egypt. In Cairo, her processing period may take two to seven years compared to other regions of the world where processing times range from three months to two years (53). This grim reality represents an informal yet effective policy of “containment” of potential African refugees. Refugee immigration policy then, while it looks admirable on paper, is racist and xenophobic in reality. The main academic contribution of the book is found in chapters 5 and 10. In chapter 5, readers are introduced to an often ignored topic: forced and voluntary repatriation among refugees. This chapter succeeds in answering the question: what motivates refugees who are already in a safe host country to engage in self-repatriation, even if it may entail confronting once again the life-threatening conditions from which they fled? A crucial determinant is their experiences in host countries. As Ighodaro writes, “It is only because life in their host countries is so horrible that many refugees repatriate, despite the horrific and dangerous conditions they know they will face there” (89). Chapter 10 of Living the Experience is also an enjoyable read as it reveals the information networks that exist between Africans in Canada and those seeking asylum abroad. Communication goes both ways: while those who remain in Africa advise already exiled refugees on whether it is safe to repatriate, African-Canadians also inform potential asylum-seekers how to work through the refugee system and gain admission into Canada. These transnational, yet informal, networks are crucially important, as Africans in peril who have such information are undoubtedly better equipped to navigate the immigration system than those who do not. While this book breaks new ground by putting a microscope on the African newcomer experience, it has a number of shortcomings. The anger and disappointment Ighodaro reveals about the African refugees’ situation comes across strongly, [End Page 235] and at times it makes him too emotionally-charged to offer an adequate analysis. To speak of “neighbourhood imprisonment” and “economic genocide” in Canada arguably equates Canada — with its relatively humanitarian refugee system — to that of South Africa’s apartheid. The word “genocide” ought to be used more cautiously for it does not characterise the situation of African newcomers in Canada. The claims in this book are rarely corroborated with factual or statistical information. Ighodaro fails to discuss what constitutes “economic genocide” and “neighbourhood imprisonment.” When he asserts that the government...